Giuseppe Verdi, Alban Berg, Daniel Auber, Richard Wagner, and Benjamin Britten belonged to a human species that has teased the world's imagination for centuries. This species is the artistic revolutionary, its defiance of social and stylistic norms coming in the form of musical, poetic, prosaic, and pictoral expression. Music is one of the most powerful means by which artists reveal truths or force the public to acknowledge facts that move about with them in their lives. Below are five demonstrations of that, five operas that have helped to change the way people think about the human condition, the social scene, government, and (of course) music itself.
Giuseppe Verdi's Nabucco
Over 130 years before Les Miserables, Verdi composed Nabucco, which contains "The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves," an anthem from his first hugely successful opera that carries a similar message to "Do You Hear the People Sing?", though his characters lived to complain another day, literally. Nabucco translates to Nebuchadnezzar, no synopsis necessary. Verdi used the prayerful cry of the Israelites for their Promised Land as a voice for the Italians of his time, who lived in search of one leader or another who would unify their country by whatever available means. This was the start of Verdi's musical and personal involvement in politics, a patriotism that would inspire some of his most popular 'everyone's operas' and most critically acclaimed works, additionally starting a tradition in music that even now has composers everywhere fitting their scores to the issues and problems of the "little people" and building reputations as the hard life's soundtrack makers. "The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves" was sung by an Italian chorus at Verdi's "second funeral," the entire country of Italy having mourned his death in January of 1901.
Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde
Ever wondered why John Williams's, Howard Shore's, and practically every black-and-white film's composer's music sounds the way it does? The reason we don't hear much of Beethoven's or Bach's or even Verdi's influence in the symphonic scores of the movies has a name, Richard Wagner. Wagner is famous in popular culture for "The Ride of the Valkyries" and "The Wedding March," but opera crazies acknowledge him as the composer of one of the biggest game changers in operatic history, Tristan und Isolde, and for constantly fighting with Verdi. We'll focus on said opera here (an "Artist Apprezz" feature to follow next Wednesday with an explanation of the rest). Tristan und Isolde is the first complete operatic work wherein no set rhythm or traditional 'tune' is to be found anywhere. That means no arias, either. Instead, its music floats like a line of balloons tied to the wrists of nine-year-olds, the nine-year-olds being what are called leitmotifs. "Luke's Theme" and the "Imperial March" from... well, you know where from... are examples of leitmotifs. They keep the works they belong to on a specific musical path and usually are the themes on which every other line of notes is based. Wagner wasn't the first composer to write leitmotifs, but he was the first composer to make music that relied completely on them, transforming the way composers after him worked with the art he served.
Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes
Once upon a time, there lived a fisherman named Peter Grimes in a village full of very judgmental and gossipy folks who didn't know anything about giving people second chances but were well versed in weeding out perceived problem-makers. Two dead kids and a disappointed girlfriend into the story, he became Britten's symbol of the difficulties that humanness encounters when it tries to fit into the space enclosed by the upside down glass bowl of societal expectations and customs. Benjamin Britten, being a member of a subculture that was socially unacceptable in his time, was very interested in things like group psychology and the sour, even violent, tendencies in a person that are fostered by the isolation that being shunned by one's community enforces. In Peter Grimes, he explored social theories and emotional concepts of all kinds and made his revelations as candid and memorable as possible. The theme of the story being, in Britten's words, "the struggle of the individual against the masses," Peter Grimes was the Twentieth Century's first "People's Opera," which carried a message that not only a particular nation (Britten was a native of England), not only Britten's fellow homosexuals, but an entire generation could relate to, bringing attention to some of the modern day's standing issues.
Alban Berg's Wozzeck
I've reviewed Berg's most popular work, Lulu, on this site recently. Now I say, "Hello, again," to one of the most revolutionary Twentieth Century composers, member of the "Second Viennese School," a group of music makers who helped to make modern classical music what it is today. Berg was buddies with the "School's" head, Arnold Schoenberg, who did something very special with Richard Wagner's style that made it sound more chaotic, more emotionally direct, more human. However, while Schoenberg liked to explore what was in his time accepted as "the usual drama" of life, focusing on his revolutionary techniques with music and spectacle rather than plot innovation, Berg liked to take realism "all the way." Wozzeck is the first on the list of Berg's operatic goodies, carrying a theme that offends even now, the whole truth and nothing but the truth regarding the clash of religion and humanity, so well as the harshness of life in a rural military town and, above all, the sadism that swims in the nature of even everyday people. Wozzeck hit hard in Nazi Germany and became a smash everywhere else in the world, making Berg very financially comfortable and very, very important as a composer. It was the first opera of the Twentieth Century "new," influencing the psychology and sound of most famous modern stage music ever since its first run of performances.
Daniel Auber's La Muette de Portici
Now for the opera that made all the rest of the works on this list possible. La Muette de Portici is held as the first Grand Opera, which means it was the first opera to bring more than the traditional amount of life's elements to the elegant stylings of early Nineteenth Century vocal music. Grand Opera became known for its elaborate set designs, huge orchestras, casts that could fill island countries, and superior acting requirements (or, at least, more varied stage gestures and movements), all of which we're now used to, all of which Auber expected for the first performances of his groundbreaking work, based on the 1647 uprising of Masaniello in Naples (Yes, this one also introduced political statements to music.). La Muette de Portici was banned for awhile after a disturbance arose during a performance of it in Brussels, a disturbance that occurred in parallel to the July Revolution in Paris. Of course, any anti-monarchy pedal-pushing the opera did was alleged and unintended, and Auber's reputation only continued to soar once theatre doors opened to it again.
There ya have it. Are there any titles you can add to the list of operas that changed the world? If so, I'd be happy to read all about them in your comments. Thanks for reading, buds. I apologize for the late entry, which comes after a battle with my Internet supply, and I thank all of you for your support of Everyone's Opera! Happy opera loving, all of you! I hope you come on back next week for an "Artist Apprezz" feature on composer Richard Wagner.
Giuseppe Verdi's Nabucco
Over 130 years before Les Miserables, Verdi composed Nabucco, which contains "The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves," an anthem from his first hugely successful opera that carries a similar message to "Do You Hear the People Sing?", though his characters lived to complain another day, literally. Nabucco translates to Nebuchadnezzar, no synopsis necessary. Verdi used the prayerful cry of the Israelites for their Promised Land as a voice for the Italians of his time, who lived in search of one leader or another who would unify their country by whatever available means. This was the start of Verdi's musical and personal involvement in politics, a patriotism that would inspire some of his most popular 'everyone's operas' and most critically acclaimed works, additionally starting a tradition in music that even now has composers everywhere fitting their scores to the issues and problems of the "little people" and building reputations as the hard life's soundtrack makers. "The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves" was sung by an Italian chorus at Verdi's "second funeral," the entire country of Italy having mourned his death in January of 1901.
Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde
Ever wondered why John Williams's, Howard Shore's, and practically every black-and-white film's composer's music sounds the way it does? The reason we don't hear much of Beethoven's or Bach's or even Verdi's influence in the symphonic scores of the movies has a name, Richard Wagner. Wagner is famous in popular culture for "The Ride of the Valkyries" and "The Wedding March," but opera crazies acknowledge him as the composer of one of the biggest game changers in operatic history, Tristan und Isolde, and for constantly fighting with Verdi. We'll focus on said opera here (an "Artist Apprezz" feature to follow next Wednesday with an explanation of the rest). Tristan und Isolde is the first complete operatic work wherein no set rhythm or traditional 'tune' is to be found anywhere. That means no arias, either. Instead, its music floats like a line of balloons tied to the wrists of nine-year-olds, the nine-year-olds being what are called leitmotifs. "Luke's Theme" and the "Imperial March" from... well, you know where from... are examples of leitmotifs. They keep the works they belong to on a specific musical path and usually are the themes on which every other line of notes is based. Wagner wasn't the first composer to write leitmotifs, but he was the first composer to make music that relied completely on them, transforming the way composers after him worked with the art he served.
Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes
Once upon a time, there lived a fisherman named Peter Grimes in a village full of very judgmental and gossipy folks who didn't know anything about giving people second chances but were well versed in weeding out perceived problem-makers. Two dead kids and a disappointed girlfriend into the story, he became Britten's symbol of the difficulties that humanness encounters when it tries to fit into the space enclosed by the upside down glass bowl of societal expectations and customs. Benjamin Britten, being a member of a subculture that was socially unacceptable in his time, was very interested in things like group psychology and the sour, even violent, tendencies in a person that are fostered by the isolation that being shunned by one's community enforces. In Peter Grimes, he explored social theories and emotional concepts of all kinds and made his revelations as candid and memorable as possible. The theme of the story being, in Britten's words, "the struggle of the individual against the masses," Peter Grimes was the Twentieth Century's first "People's Opera," which carried a message that not only a particular nation (Britten was a native of England), not only Britten's fellow homosexuals, but an entire generation could relate to, bringing attention to some of the modern day's standing issues.
Alban Berg's Wozzeck
I've reviewed Berg's most popular work, Lulu, on this site recently. Now I say, "Hello, again," to one of the most revolutionary Twentieth Century composers, member of the "Second Viennese School," a group of music makers who helped to make modern classical music what it is today. Berg was buddies with the "School's" head, Arnold Schoenberg, who did something very special with Richard Wagner's style that made it sound more chaotic, more emotionally direct, more human. However, while Schoenberg liked to explore what was in his time accepted as "the usual drama" of life, focusing on his revolutionary techniques with music and spectacle rather than plot innovation, Berg liked to take realism "all the way." Wozzeck is the first on the list of Berg's operatic goodies, carrying a theme that offends even now, the whole truth and nothing but the truth regarding the clash of religion and humanity, so well as the harshness of life in a rural military town and, above all, the sadism that swims in the nature of even everyday people. Wozzeck hit hard in Nazi Germany and became a smash everywhere else in the world, making Berg very financially comfortable and very, very important as a composer. It was the first opera of the Twentieth Century "new," influencing the psychology and sound of most famous modern stage music ever since its first run of performances.
Daniel Auber's La Muette de Portici
Now for the opera that made all the rest of the works on this list possible. La Muette de Portici is held as the first Grand Opera, which means it was the first opera to bring more than the traditional amount of life's elements to the elegant stylings of early Nineteenth Century vocal music. Grand Opera became known for its elaborate set designs, huge orchestras, casts that could fill island countries, and superior acting requirements (or, at least, more varied stage gestures and movements), all of which we're now used to, all of which Auber expected for the first performances of his groundbreaking work, based on the 1647 uprising of Masaniello in Naples (Yes, this one also introduced political statements to music.). La Muette de Portici was banned for awhile after a disturbance arose during a performance of it in Brussels, a disturbance that occurred in parallel to the July Revolution in Paris. Of course, any anti-monarchy pedal-pushing the opera did was alleged and unintended, and Auber's reputation only continued to soar once theatre doors opened to it again.
There ya have it. Are there any titles you can add to the list of operas that changed the world? If so, I'd be happy to read all about them in your comments. Thanks for reading, buds. I apologize for the late entry, which comes after a battle with my Internet supply, and I thank all of you for your support of Everyone's Opera! Happy opera loving, all of you! I hope you come on back next week for an "Artist Apprezz" feature on composer Richard Wagner.
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